Real as the Air I Breathe

TWR Country Focus: Venezuela

A letter from a woman who lives near the Venezuela-Colombia border:

I always listened to the radio, and one day as I was searching the dial, I tuned in to a song that I liked and realized that it was Christian. I continued listening to the station and began to listen to the messages.

Through this station and some of the programs from Trans World Radio, I began to know the Lord Jesus, about his plan of salvation and why I should accept him as my Savior. A desire to read the Bible grew up in me, so I went and took a Bible out of an old armoire I had in the house and dusted it off. The truth is that I had no idea how to begin to read it until I heard a program on the station called A Través de la Biblia [Thru the Bible]. … One day I tuned in to this program, and I remember that they were teaching on the book of the apostle John. It impacted me how God spoke to me through the person that was teaching – who, by the way, had a very nice voice. In this way I began to learn about the plan of God for man and to recognize that I needed God and that he was as real as the air I breathed, that although it cannot be seen, it can be felt.

Today I thank God because he placed a station nearby with a different kind of message that helped me know God and have an encounter with Jesus. This happened even without a church at first and without anyone coming to talk to me about God. He wanted to rescue me from the hell in which I lived because of the abuse and drunkenness of my husband and because of the debts that were going to make us lose the house and the farm.

Today, thank God, I [worship in a local church] with my children. My husband has not yet wanted to receive the Word, but I know that God will do the wonderful work in him. Soon I will be baptized because I want to straighten out my life with God and serve him in appreciation for his eternal love for us. I hope in the Lord that he will do the work in my husband. When he comes home I always put the station on so he can hear the music and the messages. Before, he shouted at me and told me to turn off the radio. But now he doesn’t say anything, and I know that he likes the messages, too, because I have even seen him weep as he hears these beautiful teachings.

Facts about Venezuela*

This nation of 30 million people is beset by a deep political divide, high inflation and consumer-good shortages.

The number and impact of evangelicals have been on the rise in this society, said to be among the least churchgoing countries in Latin America.

Off the northern coast of Venezuela sits the island of Bonaire, where TWR maintains an AM transmitter that is being upgraded to send out even stronger broadcast signals to Cuba, Yucatán and the South American continent.